in his own body, marks of all previous conditions. Even so, in his
spiritual body, each individual exemplifies "The total world since life
began," and every soul must span the space from the first man, Adam, to
the quickened spirit of a son of God. People whose business it is to
develop human souls should remember that.

Again: How to help weak and tempted humanity so as to build it up, to
make it strong and able to resist temptation, is a problem that has
never yet been fully solved. Whether it is better to hold up an awful
example before the gaze of the suffering ones, and to relate to them
the certainty of a like conclusion to their own career if a like course
of life is persisted in; whether it is better to point out the success
that some tempted and tortured men have reached, by devious ways that
led through flame and darkness, and from which the victims have escaped
only as by fire, like brands plucked from the burning,--which of these
ways is the better, heaven only knows and has never revealed.

It is well enough, though, to remember that the Master was tempted in
all points, like as we are, and that it is said of the saints in glory
that they came to their reward through great tribulation.

There can be no greater tribulation than for one to be born with a
nature that is intrinsically false, fickle, passionate, impulsive--in a
word, such a nature as "Dodd" naturally possessed--a nature far away
from the line of truth and right; a nature such as multitudes of boys
are born with in this wide, wide world of ours. To guide safely into
the port of rest souls thus weighted down with depravity is a task for
gods and men to compass--if they can. The chances of wreck are many
fold to one; but now and then the harbor is made, thank God!